


13 - Maryless

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Celebrations, Drunk Sex, Gen, Happy John Watson, John is a Mess, Mentioned Mary Morstan/Tom (Sherlock), Mild Language, No Mary Morstan/John Watson, POV John Watson, Rambling Point Of View, Reconciliation, Waking Up Back At The Beginning, life is good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 12:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: So if he keeps going back tothatday, maybe it's Mary that's triggering it? Maybe he just...won't ask her out? Maybe that will make it all better...





	13 - Maryless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MizJoely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/gifts).

> So this is another fic in "John Watson's Groundhog Days" that I was asked to write by **MizJoely** that I had some fun with. I've always enjoyed Sarah Sawyer and thought it might be nice if there was a reconcilliation if he wasn't going to be with Mary (but of course, in this AU, the good things can never last...). Please enjoy!

He had lost count of how many times he’d repeated things. Each morning, waking up with a start with the nightmare, with the cane by the side of his tiny bed in the dingy flat. That day...he could live through hours, days, weeks, even years, and then something would happen and he’d wake up to _that day_ all over again. No matter the changes, no matter...well, anything. He was always drawn back to that day.

So he decided maybe it wasn’t something that had happened when he knew Sherlock that was the cause. Maybe…

Well, maybe it was Mary.

If he didn’t marry Mary, things would go back, right? Right?

He loved her, he did, but things had gone askew when he’d gotten the brass ones to ask her to dinner. Not right at the start, but now that he knew what he knew, how could he not have seen the signs? How could he not have known she was just as much of a sociopath as...well, Sherlock? He’d never lump her in with true psychopaths like Moriarty or Magnussen, never, but she had to be missing something to kill people for a living.

So no Mary. When he got to that day, no asking her out. And no asking any other day, either. No romantic comedy type failings. None of that rubbish. He’d avoid her because his life would be better without her. It _had_ to be.

So he went with his life, living from the moment he work up through all his adventures with Sherlock through to his fall, trying not to let on he knew it was all a big ploy to keep him safe, mourning Sherlock, though since he knew the man was really alive and going to come back with that hideous drawn on pencil mustache and the glasses, there wasn’t as much sadness to it all. He sat on his hands when she came into the office, bit his lip when she smiled, tried to give every indication that there was no interest. Nope, none, nada, zilch, zip. 

He was a horrible liar.

He always had been, he knew that, but oh...the good times outweighed the bad. He knew he loved her, deep down. Knew he loved her and would love her despite things and it made it so so hard to not interact in the way he wanted to.

But he managed, and Sarah introduced her to a nice bloke named Tom who was a million times more boring than he was, and yes, he knew it was _that_ Tom that Molly would have met and fallen for and gotten engaged to until Sherlock came back and all the plans she'd had had flown out the window.

Maybe that was best for her, just as a Mary-less life was best for him.

He filled up his time by working, nose to the grindstone, and drinks with Greg and lunches with Molly and checking in with Mycroft (he was always so sure Mycroft had some idea he knew Sherlock was alive, but he said nothing about it and honestly, if that’s what he thought, maybe he’d tell his brother to do a better job reintroducing himself to the world of the living). He didn’t grow a mustache but he did update his wardrobe.

And then...they tried again, him and Sarah. He was surprised by that, but she left the surgery in his hands and they went out to celebrate with the staff, Mary and the meat dagger (which he would never be, thank God) included, and afterward it was just them and shots of whiskey and a kiss and to his newer, better flat they went.

And he was happy! He hadn’t been sure he could be happy, knowing what he knew, remembering what he remembered, but once he stopped trying to fix things after letting Mary have a life with another bloke, he decided to fuck it, he deserved happiness. He did. And he and Sarah, they were happy.

At least, until the morning he woke up from a night of passionate pleasure and whispered love confessions to find himself on the small bed in the dingy flat, cane by his bedside and pain in his leg.

Fuck it all, fuck it all, _fuck it all_, he just wasn’t going to be able to win, was he?


End file.
